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Dienstag, 30. Dezember 2014

Bosnia: Radical Muslims arrested for entering church
Sarajevo, 24 Nov. (AKI) – Bosnian police arrested two Muslims
allegedly linked to a radical ‘Wahabi’ sect after they sought access to a
Catholic church in Sarajevo on Sunday…Church of Trinity vicar Ivan
Ravlic said the two men knocked on the door of the church late Saturday
and asked to see inside the building.
“My answer was that there was no need for them to look at the church
at that late hour and that was when they explained they were disturbed
by the church bell,” Ravlic said. […]

…Samra Kesinovic, 16, and her friend Sabina Selimovic,
15, made claims on their purported social media accounts that they were
both alive and pregnant in Syria, Central European News reports.
Kesinovic was originally thought to be dead when reports emerged
Monday that she had been killed in combat. But a Tuesday conversation
between an anonymous WhatsApp account believed to be the teen and her
friends in Austria confirmed that those rumors weren’t true.
The duo, previously seen in photos brandishing AK47s, are believed
to have married a pair of Chechen fighters in Syria, according to CEN.
The two vanished earlier this year and were parading their involvement
with ISIS on social media — leading Austrian media to dub them the new
face of jihad.
Austrian police and Interpol continue to hunt the teens….The
messages also said they had received new names featuring the word “umm” —
which is Arabic for mother
Despite the numerous comments, Austrian officials pointed to the men
of ISIS as the possible culprits behind such outlandish statements.
They warned that the jihadists had complete control over the young
girls’ lives and said the madmen would never allow them to use social
media, according to CEN.
“We have no independent confirmation that either of them are [sic]
dead or alive, or that either of them are [sic] pregnant, although we
suspect both are married,” an Austrian police spokesman said…Authorities
believe that ISIS is using Kesinovic and Selimovic to promote their
cause and recruit other youngsters from the West to join them and spread
bloodshed abroad, CEN reports. […]

One weird thing about this, which no one mentions, is that usually
an Islamic headdress is flattering to the face and makes the wearer look
better. Here’s me, for example:
But this is a rare case in which it actually gets worse:
This one, on the other hand, definitely looks better:
Just another corrective report:Austrian Teenage Jihadi Brides Samra Kesinovic and Sabina Selimovic ‘Alive’ (IB Times Sep 16, 2014)

Two Austrian teenage girls who joined the Islamic State
have reportedly used social media to refute claims that one of them is
dead…However The Local claims Kesinovic and Selimovic have since written
to friends on WhatsApp, confirming they are both alive and well.
“Neither of us is dead,” Selimovic reportedly wrote.
The pair, who are of Bosnian origin, are believed to have become
radicalised in Vienna after coming into contact with Chechen youths.
They are believed to have subsequently become “jihadi brides” in
Syria. Photos of them holding rifles and posing with masked gunmen
started circulating online - although some experts argued the pictures
might have been doctored, The Times reports.
In a letter to their families, the girls said they had gone to the
Middle East “to fight for Islam” and were ready to die as jihadists.
“No point looking for us: See you in paradise…We will serve Allah and die for him,” they wrote.
Last week police stopped two other schoolgirls who were planning to
travel to Middle East to join Islamic State militants. Authorities
believed the pair aged 14 and 15 might have been inspired by Kesinovic
and Selimovic.
Meanwhile the Austrian government is considering banning Islamist
symbols including that of the Islamic State. Some 160 Austrian nationals
are believed to be among the hundreds of Europeans to have joined
Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria. Dozens of women, including about 60
Britons, are known to have travelled to the region to support IS.

******END UPDATE******
I can certainly understand being a little girl with an idol. Mine
was Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, and my sister’s was Isis. But her Isis
looked like this:
Not like this:
I understand Isis being your idol, but this is ridiculous. Maybe the
girls below were just confused? I mean, the goddess Isis was Egyptian,
not Syrian:Austrian teenage girl jihadist ‘killed in Syria’ (Telegraph, Sept. 15)One of a pair of Austrian [ahem, Bosnian] teenage girls who left
Vienna homes in April to join Syrian jihadists reportedly killed
Sabina Selimovic, 15, (left) and Samra Kesinovic, 16, travelled to Syria Photo: INTERPOL

One of two young Austrian women who travelled to Syria to fight with
Islamic extremists has reportedly been killed just months after
arriving in the country.
[No!]
Sabina Selimovic, 15, and Samra Kesinovic, 16, both the daughters of
immigrant families from Bosnia, left their homes in Vienna in April
with the apparent intention of fighting for Syrian rebels.
They are thought to have travelled to Turkey and then to have
crossed the border into Syria, having become radicalised after attending
a local mosque in Vienna and reading about jihad on the internet.
[Vienna? You don’tsay!]
They posted on social media photographs of themselves handling assault weapons and wearing black, full length burkas.
But Austrian authorities now think one of them – they have so far
refused to divulge which one – may have been killed during fighting.

Refused to divulge which one. Does it really make a difference?

…Austrian authorities fear that the two teenagers’
example is inspiring other young, radicalised Muslim women to travel to
Syria and volunteer to fight.

Now, ISIL et al have taken violence to such a level that even al
Qaeda has distanced itself from it, and yet something about the former’s
methods clearly appealed to these Bosnian (of all things!) girls. Where
might they have acquired this taste for blood? Surely they would have
been so traumatized by their parents’ tales of the Bosnian war and the
supposed Serb killing machine that they’d have no stomach for violence.
Unless the tales — like the war itself — had precisely the opposite
effect.

In Germany, meanwhile, an alleged jihadist went on trial on Monday, accused of fighting in Syria for Isil.
In the first German criminal proceedings involving Isil, Kreshnik
Berisha, a 20-year-old born near Frankfurt to a family from Kosovo, has
been charged with membership of a foreign terrorist organisation.

Well, if this isn’t the article that just keeps on articulating. A
German first, and a Kosovo Albanian is involved. Who could have seen
that coming throughout the ’90s?! Frankfurt and Kosovo. What a couple.

…Berisha is believed to have become radicalised when he
fell in with a group of Muslim fundamentalists while on a job training
programme.
Federal prosecutors say Berisha travelled to Syria via Turkey in
July 2013 with other Islamists planning to join the fight to create an
Islamist “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq.
Soon after his arrival, Berisha allegedly underwent firearms training and was put to work as a medic and a guard.
In the six months he spent in Syria, he is believed to have fought
in at least three battles on the side of the jihadists against President
Bashar al-Assad’s troops.
He returned home for reasons that are unclear to German authorities in Dec 2013 and was arrested at Frankfurt airport…

Now, if 15 and 16 sound young for Bosnian Muslims to be all about The V (violence), check out these over-achievers. They’re barely out of their terrorist twos. I mean, terrible twos:

Fifteen people have been detained in Kosovo in an
operation aimed at tackling recruitment of fighters for Islamic State
(IS) in Syria and Iraq.
Among them are several imams, including the head of Pristina’s Grand Mosque, ShefqetKrasniqi, local reports say.
Some 200 Kosovo Albanians have gone to fight in Syria and several have died.
…
Kosovo police did not name those arrested, publishing only their
initials, but said the operation had been carried out following threats
and due to the importance of national security. [Which of course first
would require a nation, but who’s keeping track. Oh yes, they are.]
Many of those held were from Pristina, Prizren or the flashpoint
town of Mitrovica. [Wasn’t this ‘Serb’ sellout just talking about how lovely Prizren was?]
Islamist leader Fuad Raqimi was detained after a raid on his flat, reports said.
US envoy Tracey Jacobson, in a tweet, praised Kosovo’s “pro-active response against fighters and terrorism”.
[Again, Saudi Arabia arrests terrorists too.]
Last month, 40 people were arrested
as police searched dozens of sites across Kosovo, including makeshift
mosques thought to have been used as recruitment centres. […]

…Samra Kesinovic, 16, and Sabina Selimovic, 15, are the
daunting duo feared to be encouraging young Austrian girls to flee their
country and take up arms in Syria to help ISIS spread violence, Central
European News reports.
Austria’s Interior Ministry has confirmed that two additional girls
from Vienna — ages 16 and 14 — recently were nabbed trying to sneak out
of the country and join the Islamic State jihadists.
They were caught when the mother of a third friend who was supposed
to go with them to Syria grew suspicious when she noticed all the
luggage her daughter had packed.
Little is known about the two, but their parents are believed to be
from Iraq. Police are trying to piece together how the wannabe jihadis
could have become radicalized and who may have lent a direct hand in
getting them to Syria.
Kesinovic and Selimovic vanished from Austria earlier this year and
paraded their terror involvement on social media, posting images of
themselves holding AK47s as they stood among several armed men [NOT
EXACTLY ISLAMIC-KOSHER. OR, HALAL. OR, ISLAMICALLY CORRECT], according
to CEN.
Austrian media dubbed the girls the new face of jihad in Syria two
weeks ago and warned that others just like them have started to become
galvanized by their actions…He added that the problem with teenagers
fleeing the country to commit bloodshed abroad is something that’s
increased greatly and is difficult to fix.
“Once they have left the country, even if they then changed their
minds, it is then almost impossible to get them back.” [Aw, darn.]
Up to 130 people from Austria are believed to be waging jihad across
the globe, CEN reports. More than half of them are thought to have
originally traveled from the Caucasus region and have valid residence
permits in Austria.

It’s always interesting, in a cringe-inducing way, to read the
“traveler’s” take on Kosovo. This chick is a “feminist author and
political activist,” so her ethnic identity naturally means nothing to
her. Certainly not something worth defending, unlike those modern,
generic, compulsory transnational values like gay and women’s rights.
Not surprisingly, her observations read somewhat incoherent and
self-contradictory:Kosovo Is Not Serbia (Huffington Post, Sept. 9, By Jasmina Tesanovic)

…As one of our friends in the region put it, being an
American in Kosovo is like being a pope. You will be asked all kinds of
questions and told about all kind of injustices. Nobody in Kosovo has
forgotten 1999, so the papal Americans are like angels of mercy with
airborne bombs.
Being a Serb in a region that looks quite like Serbia, I walked
around thoughtlessly talking in Serbian…With almost every Serb
ethnically cleansed, there’s nobody left to speak it, just empty
Orthodox churches turned into tourist attractions while the town abounds
with pizza and burger joints with English-language menus…Especially
notorious to me are the war crimes committed by Serbian military forces
against the Albanian population, which led to the bombings by NATO in
1999.
It’s the globalized life in Kosovo that is really new — the crammed
life of a young population stuck inside a frozen conflict, an ethnic
canton, a tiny, not-yet-internationally recognized, European republic.
Tensions abound in this little fishbowl of a country where all the great
powers can look in, but none of the locals can escape. Unemployment,
alcoholism, corruption, smuggling goods, smuggling people….
The shadow of another lost international regime, the Ottoman Empire,
lies heavy here. There are still a few households where people speak
old-fashioned Turkish, and besides, Turkey is nearby: NATO
Turco-globalism, with Turkish soap operas, Turkish coffee, Turkish food,
Turkish architecture and construction companies. Istanbul is the
aspirational capital in southern Kosovo. If something is fancy, it’s in
big-town Istanbul style.
The pride and joy of the locals is the major mosque built by the
famous architect Sinan in the heyday of Suleiman the Magnificent.
Muezzin towers abound in Prizren, and every one of them has a taped
recital of the daily calls to prayer…The narrow streets of Prizren swarm
with tourists, eating cheap, excellent street food paid for in euros.
Kosovo is a NATO EU Muslim enclave; the “KFOR” units have been guarding
it for the past two decades. Uniforms and jeeps mingle with the SUVs of
wealthy local bosses, expensive private cars whose drivers despise the
pedestrians. Modest Prizren has the pace of some much bigger city;
locals seem tense and busy, and even the beggars are antic.
…Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad are the urban shadows over this town,
which is 90 percent Muslim…a projection about the Turkish soap opera
industry stops them in their tracks…The coffee drinkers stop to cluster
and marvel…These television dramas have fans in Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt,
and Serbia, even — every district where Ottoman rule once held sway.
I myself have watched these serials, amazed and dazed. As an
ex-Ottoman, ex-Yugoslav, ex-whatever-dies-next, it’s astonishing to see
how much the Ottoman culture of unwritten laws, food and history
persists in the 21st-century Balkans. The women in these soap operas
don’t have any mild “first-world problems” — their dramatic conflicts
involve child marriages, grandfathers who are tribal mafia, gangland
honor killings. Some are cosmopolitan because they leave their state;
others turn cosmopolitan because their empire bloodily crumbles around
them.
…
On the way back to Serbia, there was a five-hour queue of cars on the
Serbian border. Polite officers were deliberately slow, as if saying,
“You wanted a border, and now you have it.” I remembered how, 100 years
ago, my grandfather survived the Thessaloniki front, retreating through
Albania with very few other Serbian soldiers who’d taken part in that
war, far, far away from Serbia…My grandma never forgave my grandpa for
fighting wars far away from his homeland as an idealistic fool. If he
hadn’t come back, my mother never would have been born, and neither
would I.
Time has come to quote Max Frisch, the Swiss writer in this useless,
never-ending Serbo/Albanian conflict: I want to live for my country,
not to die for it!

Must be nice to be above it all. And notice how the “Stop it
already!” attitude we’ve come to expect from Western ignoramuses on this
issue makes its entrance in typical fashion: following an illustration
of Serbian bitterness or ‘misbehavior.’
Whether her title “Kosovo is Not Serbia” was meant in a political
sense, or as a nutshell of her various observations about the place, I
don’t know. But we already know that Turkish PM Erdogan agrees, as he
made clear around this time last year:Serbia: Turkish PM meddling with Kosovo statement (AFP, Oct. 25, 2013)

… “The declarations of the Turkish Prime Minister…
represent a severe violation of international law and interference in
Serbia’s internal affairs,” a Serbian government statement said.
Erdogan’s comments “harm relations between Belgrade and Ankara and
disturb efforts deployed by Serbia to normalise the situation in the
region, notably in Kosovo,” it added.
Erdogan told a cheering crowd on Wednesday that “Kosovo is Turkey
and Turkey is Kosovo,” emphasising the two nations’ shared history and
culture. He was accompanied by his counterparts in Kosovo and Albania,
Hashim Thaci and Edi Rama, respectively.
Turkey was among the first countries to recognise Kosovo’s independence.

It was also the first to tell Kosovo that, thanks to Turkey’s
efforts, Pakistan would be recognizing its statehood; in fact, Kosovo is
Turkey so much so that they were assigned the same Pakistani ambassador:Pakistan recognises Kosovo (Dec. 24, 2012)

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday officially recognised
Kosovo as an independent state…. “The Government of Pakistan has decided
to accord recognition to the Republic of Kosovo. The decision has been
made in accordance with aspirations of the people of Kosovo,” the
Foreign Office said in a statement.
Pakistan is the 98th country among 193 UN-member states to recognise Kosovo, which declared independence on Feb 17, 2008.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Turkey has been accredited to Kosovo as the country’s envoy.
Turkey has played a major role in convincing Pakistan to recognise
Kosovo. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan informed Kosovar
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci about Islamabad’s decision even before it
was officially announced.
…
Islamabad had supported Kosovo’s cause in the United Nations. However,
it always shied away from officially recognising it because of
implications of such a move. The unilateral declaration of independence
by Kosovo was seen as a precedent for resolving ethnic conflicts on
considerations other than territorial integrity of countries. It was
also feared that the Kosovo principle could at a subsequent stage be
applied to other separatist movements.

…Albanian and Serbian are the official languages in
Kosovo, and Turkish is in official use in the municipalities of Prizren,
Gjilan and Mamusha…Nesa Milojevic, a Kosovo Serb from Kamenica, said[,]
“…I see many times that the words [in Serbian] are written with
grammatical mistakes and sometimes they sound funny…It might seem
unimportant for the others, but being a Serb, those mistakes take your
eye immediately.” …Shukran Bejtullahu, a member of the Turkish minority,
says Turkish is not much used in Pristina in institutions or on
official documents, “but it is much better in Prizren… [where] all
institutions have their names written in Turkish as well.” […]

****UPDATE****
Reader Bojan points out that the AP’s resident Albanian writer, Nebi
Qena, who was put on this story, “naturally portrayed
organ-trafficker-in-chief Thaci as the good guy who ‘condemns’ the act;
but the fact that the story was even reported is surprising to say the
least.”
Jewish cemetery in Kosovo capital desecrated: ‘Jews out’ spray-painted on memorial for Jewish families who perished during World War II. (AP, via Israel News, Dec. 1)

Police in Kosovo are investigating who sprayed swastikas
on dozens of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery recently restored by
American and Kosovan students, a spokesman said Thursday.
Brahim Sadrija said police had sealed off the cemetery in the
capital, Kosovo, and are looking for clues. The vandalism is believed to
have happened Tuesday.
…
In June, a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and
their peers from the American University in Kosovo restored the
neglected cemetery by clearing debris from around the graves and cutting
overgrown grass.
Rabbi Edward S. Boraz of the college’s Roth Center for Jewish Life
held a dedication ceremony at the memorial site, with students taking
turns to read out the names of Jewish families from the region who
perished during World War II.

I remember those poor suckers, and have been meaning to write about
that visit. Note that when it comes to Americans and the Balkans, even
the Ivy League gets only a remedial-level education, as my follow-up
blog will illustrate. In advance of the PR trip, a boob named Jason
Steinbaum was dispatched from NY Rep. Eliot Engel’s office to tell the
wiz kids all they’d need to know about Kosovo, a briefing that was more or less three general-issue paragraphs.
Jason Steinbaum, “expert”; senior foreign affairs committee staffer for Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.
According to the article about the cemetery desecration, it seems the Albanians haven’t forgotten their German. Well, almost:

On Thursday the hate graffiti “Jud Raus” - a misspelling
of the German “Juden Raus,” which means “Jews out” - could still be
seen at the foot of a memorial.
President Atifete Jahjaga and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci condemned the act.
“The damaging of cemeteries presents an act in complete
contradiction with the traditions and values of the people of Kosovo,
based on tolerance and full respect for all the dead and all the
monuments,” Jahjaga said in a statement.

For all the dead? Really? In that case, where have such statements from Kosovo officials been for the countlessOrthodoxcemeteries
lying in ruins all across Kosovo? Those cemeteries that are regularly
destroyed, including after restoration, forcing Serbs to dig up their
dead and rebury them in Serbia? So…what is the contradiction today with
Kosovo’s traditions and values?
(Flashback:
“[Radmila] wished to be buried alongside her late husband in the
Orthodox Christian graveyard, which has been the target of persistent
attacks and vandalism since June 1999…Apparently to be buried there is
seen as a provocation to ethnic Albanians, but it seems that no one sees
the continual vandalism of Christian graves or churches by Albanians as
provocation. Incidentally, the old Jewish graveyard adjacent to the Orthodox graveyard has also been vandalised.“)
Back again to the current article about the Jewish cemetery:
............http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=2755 Kosovo police arrest 2 suspected Islamic radicals (AP, Aug. 14)

Kosovo police say they have arrested two suspected
Islamic radicals including a cleric considered by the authorities to be
the main recruiter for Kosovo’s jihadi fighters in Iraq and Syria.
Police said the cleric is believed to be “one of the main sources of
inspiration for jihad” among Kosovo’s faithful. He was identified by
Kosovo media as Imam Zekerija Qerimi, the leader of prayers in city of
Gnjilane, eastern Kosovo.
Both of those arrested are suspected of recruiting followers for
terrorist activity and participating in terrorist organizations.

Gnjilane? You don’t say! First we had an Albanian saying the
ISISniks are doing no different from the “secular/moderate/reasonable”
U.S. partners, the KLA. Now, we have the main recruiter — a religious
Muslim Albanian — having led prayers in Gnjilane, a 1990s KLA stronghold, hotbed of violent separatism, and Serb-torture Central.
******APPENDIX******
KLA, 1999. So what’s different between ISIS and KLA other than their designated enemies?KLA Cut Off People’s Heads (Vecernje Novosti, Nov. 2, 2003)
Members of the notorious so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), who
waged a campaign of terror in Kosovo and Metohija for many years,
especially against the Serbian population (in 1999 the KLA had
approximately 20,000 armed men) continue to roam the southern province
today wearing different badges and under different names, doing
everything possible to achieve their grand dream - an independent,
Albanian Kosovo.
…
Exposing themselves to the possible risks that investigations of this
sort entail, the journalists of “Novosti”, after some days of searching
and cross-referencing facts from multiple sources, arrived at
information that enabled them to “revisit” this case with relative
reliability and “revive” this photograph of a horrible scene.
THE PLAYERS: The Albanian in the middle of the victory celebration is Sadik Cuflaj, KLA member from the Decani area.
The young man to his left is his son Valon Cuflaj, born in April
1981 in the village of Prilep, municipality of Decani. He has an UNMIK
identity card and is now a member of the Kosovo Protection Corps with
the rank of lieutenant. He works in the inspector’s office in Pec. UNMIK
has taken disciplinary measures against him on two occasions.It is assumed that these murderers belonged to one of the units
commanded by Ramush and Daut Haradinaj, which operated in the zone of
Decani - Pec.
With great caution and piety, after cross-checking, our reporters
were led to the assumption that the visible human head on the right is
the head of Bojan Cvetkovic, born in Nis in 1972. A comparison with a
photograph published in the book “Junaci otadzbine” [Heroes of the
Fatherland] also leads us to the same assumption.
…
His days as a soldier were few. On April 11 [1999] he was abducted by
members of the vicious KLA on the Prizren - Pristina road near Suva
Reka.
Four other soldiers were captured at the same time: Zarko Filipovic, Dragoljub Tanaskovic, Dragan Vucetic and Zivota Topalovic.
…
Another photograph reveals a horrific spectacle: Sadik Cuflaj is placing one of the severed heads in a large bag!
Is the bag full of the heads of young Serbian men?
This story and these photographs are just a small part of the crimes
by ethnic Albanians committed by members of the so-called Liberation
Army.
Today these same men wear the uniforms of the Protection Corps
(approximately 5,000 members of the former KLA are in the Corps),
establishing “multiethnic order” in devastated Kosovo.Thus, they are protected by the international community. Thus, all
their crimes have been forgiven. Thus, their wartime leaders and their
commanders, now dressed in elegant uniforms, can travel to the capitals
of the world and participate in roundtable discussions where they
supposedly discuss peace. […]
In a roundup of Balkans terrorism, extremism, and “militant
Islamism,” a painstakingly researched article this past February by
Gordon Bardos,
former assistant director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute,
included some interesting details (excerpted below) about
Our-Friends-the-Docile-Balkans-Muslims. The headline “Our Goal is
Jerusalem,” is a reference to the earlier-mentioned Bajram Ikanović cited in Serbia’s Politika magazine last July after an interview he gave to the Bosnian website Source.ba (thanks to Serbianna.com’s Mickey Bozinovich for tracking down the original). This
Bosnian Muslim recruiter — and by some newspaper accounts a rebel
leader — had gone to Syria “to establish Allah’s law on Earth,” adding
that he and his compatriots “have as a goal to die ‘especially in battle
against Jews…Syria absolutely does not matter to us, our goal is
Jerusalem. I am not viewed as citizen of Bosnia, we think the same from
Kazakhstan to Iceland.’” The blue-eyed ‘White al Qaeda” they told us they’d
activate. This could have been an ad for trail mix, but that just wasn’t
austere enough for Bajro. “Our Goal is Jerusalem” – Militant Islamists in Southeast Europe (Feb. 8, 2014, Gordon N. Bardos)

Dear friends of ESI,
2014 was a year of protests: from Ukraine to Bulgaria, from Bosnia
to Macedonia. Some protests had dramatic consequences: in Ukraine,
after snipers took aim at a crowd of demonstrators, the president fled
the country and a new era began. Other protests triggered early
elections, as in Bulgaria. And some protests, such as those in Bosnia,
made headlines for only a moment, changing almost nothing.
Let us begin our end of year newsletter with some reflections on protests, and two new ESI publications.

Bulgaria: Pessimism and Protest

Bulgarians are the least happy people in Europe. At least according to the latest World Happiness Report that ranked Bulgaria 144th
out of 156 nations, behind Iraqis and Afghans, Congolese and Haitians.
Last year Bulgaria made international headlines when young people killed
themselves in spectacular ways in public places. In March 2013 a young
man set himself on fire in Varna to demand the resignation of the mayor.
Five others did the same in early 2013. In November 2014 a woman tried
to set herself ablaze outside the president's office.
Bulgaria also remains the poorest EU member state, with the GDP per
capita less than half of the EU average. Almost a quarter century has
passed since Bulgarians first held democratic elections in 1990 and
began their transition. Within the European Union Bulgaria has long been
cited as an example to illustrate the limits of the transformative
power of the EU.
Today more than eight in ten Bulgarians (84 percent) tell Eurostat that
corruption is widespread in their country. Has the process of EU
enlargement as a motor of change failed in Bulgaria, as the
conventional wisdom in many EU capitals suggests?
In a new essay in our 12-part series "Return to Europe Revisited", supported by ERSTE Stiftung in Vienna, we take a closer look:

We conclude that the narrative of Bulgaria's failed transition, and
its image as hopelessly poor, corrupt and desperate, is unconvincing.
Bulgaria's pessimism is also not the pessimism of an apathetic
society. Dissatisfaction with the present instead turns into a motor for
further change and transformation. In recent years Bulgarians have
increasingly taken to the streets. There have been protests against
shale gas exploration, the construction of a new nuclear power plant,
amendments to the forestry law favouring the timber industry and planned
construction in the "Strandzha" natural park. In early 2013 there were
mass demonstrations against a rise in electricity prices and against the
mayor of the coastal city of Varna. In summer 2013 tens of thousands
demanded the resignation of a newly appointed head of the State Agency
for National Security. These protests continued until mid-2014. What is
striking is that these protests had an impact and are driven by the
desire to catch up. As Georgy Ganev, a Bulgarian economist, explains,
"Once a Moskvitch was better than a Trabant or a Zaporozhets. Now an
Opel is much worse than a BMW." This is unlikely to change any time
soon. For now, there is still a lot of life left in Bulgarian pessimism.

Bosnia: Protest and Illusions

On 7 February 2014 violence broke out in Tuzla, the regional capital
of Tuzla Canton in Northern Bosnia. War veterans, unemployed youth and
football supporters of the local club took to the streets. The core
group of protestors were former workers in socially owned enterprises.
Demonstrators entered the cantonal government building and set it on
fire. The same day violent clashes spread to other Bosnian cities,
Zenica, Sarajevo, Mostar and Bihac. Already on 7 February Tuzla
protestors published a declaration that stated that "Today in Tuzla a
new future is being created."
A group of protestors in the city of Bihac called itself "Bosnian
spring." The people, one observer noted, "had been sleeping for two
decades," but had now woken up. "Politicians have been drinking our
blood", one protestor told a journalist, "If we shed some of their blood
in the process, so be it." In fact, nobody died, although hundreds of
people, among them a large number of police officers, were injured.
One year later it is obvious that the February protests did not
change Bosnia. They did not change the debate on its economy. They did
not bring about the rise of new parties. They did not bring legislative
change. Why?
After February citizens' assemblies sprang up in city after city. And
they formulated demands. In Tuzla protestors called for the
"establishment of a technical government" of people who had never been
in government before, to be chosen by "workers and students." This
government of experts was to annul the privatisation of a number of
specific firms in the canton and to "return factories to workers… to
start production in those factories where it is possible." Other demands
focused on paying outstanding social security contributions to former
workers in socially owned enterprises, and to look better after the
interests of veterans. As we argue in a new report, this was a thinly
veiled call to return to the golden era of socialist self-management:

For this reason we are also reissuing a shorter version of a report
we published one decade ago. In fact, Bosnia has lost much more than a
year in lack of progress. It is currently the only country in the
Balkans where a report written to describe how development was failing
in 2004 remains completely relevant in 2014, since so little has
changed.
The biggest challenge for leaders in Bosnia in 2015 will be to carry
out reforms in the face of strong illusions about the causes of the
Bosnian development crisis.

The results of two-week state inspection of gas quality on Croatian
gas stations have revealed that 10 per cent of the analyzed fuel was not
up to standards and could potentially cause vehicles to malfunction.
Low-quality fuel was on sale at gas stations in the capital, Zagreb, but also in the cities of Split, Osijek and Varazdin.
Government officials have so far refused to name the companies that are selling low-quality, hazardous fuel.
The assistant minster for the Economy, Ismar Avdagic, stated on
Monday that “he understand the interest of consumers” in knowing which
companies are selling bad gas, but that the ministry could not reveal
the names just yet.
“The goal [of the inspection] was special prevention, to punish those
who are cheating, and general prevention, to send a message to others
that they cannot behave in such a manner,” Avdagic said.
During the weekend, the economy minister, Ivan Vrdoljak, announced
sanctions against the companies, which will range from 39,000 to 78,000
euro. The companies can be publicly named only after the final judgment.

US approved to sale 10 Chinook helicopters
[image: [linked image]]
December 12 2014
WASHINGTON, Dec 11, 2014 - The State Department has made a determination
approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Greece for CH-47D Chinook
helicopters and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an
estimated cost of $150 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency
delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible
sale today.
The Government of Greece has requested a possible sale of 10 CH-47D Model
Chinook Helicopters to include 23 T55-GA-714A Engines ... mehr »

Alpine Bau’s Balkan Black Hole
A year-long investigation reveals the inside story
of how construction giant Alpine Bau’s breakneck expansion into the
Balkans played a major part in its destruction.Moritz Gottsauner-Wolf, Saska Cvetkovska, Erjona Rusi, Bojana Jovanovic, Ivan Angelovski and Lawrence MarzoukBIRNVienna, Skopje, Tirana, Belgrade, LondonIn the early afternoon of June 18, 2013, more than
a 100 senior managers at construction giant Alpine Bau settled at desks
in offices across the world for a mass conference call.
Austria’s second largest construction corporation had built some of
the biggest infrastructure projects of our time – everything from
football stadia for World Cups to European highways in the Balkans and
the controversial arena for Azerbaijan’s lavish Eurovision Song Contest.

Baku Crystal Hall
Photo: Wikipedia

Yet it could no longer pay its bills and was forced to file for
bankruptcy the next day in Austria’s biggest insolvency since 1945.
The orders from the Austrian headquarters were clear: Close all
construction sites, mothball the machinery, secure documentation and
inform the 15,000 employees. Alpine Bau’s myriad subsidiaries would not
receive any payments until further notice.
Finally, a manager based in the Balkans asked the question: “Should we stay where we are, or flee?”
The drama of the question was matched by the dire state of Alpine Bau
GmbH’s projects abroad: 3.2bn euros of debt, 15,000 creditors and a
worldwide trail of unfinished construction sites.
During the past year, the Austrian magazine DATUM and journalists
from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), have been
investigating Alpine Bau’s abrupt collapse, obtaining confidential
documents and conducting more than 100 interviews and off-the-record
briefings from senior former staff in six countries.
Official records and testimonies from former staff paint a damning
picture of systemic management failures, dubious loans and contracts,
and suspicious transfers of money to off-shore accounts.
At the heart of the collapse was the Balkans – accounting for half of
the firm’s losses while representing a much smaller proportion of the
business – and the man who is accused of leading the disastrous
expansion there, Dietmar Aluta-Oltyan, whose power went virtually
unchecked despite holding no managerial role.
An onslaught of legal action has followed the bankruptcy with
allegations of embezzlement, accounting fraud, bankruptcy offences and
failure to apply for insolvency in due time, all currently being
investigated by prosecutors. There is, however, no indication that Mr
Aluta-Oltyan is among those being probed.
Until today, only fragments of news have emerged from the bankruptcy
hearings in Vienna, which remain at least one year away from beginning
disbursing funds to unpaid contractors.Disproportionate losses in the Balkans
In contrast to its overseas operations, Alpine Bau had been making a profit at home in Austria.
While the bankruptcy was sudden, almost 80 per cent of the Austrian
workforce found jobs within a few weeks as outstanding projects were
quickly picked up by competitors.
Alpine Bau was brought down by its foreign debts, despite having
pumped more than 1.3bn euros into its overseas subsidiaries and branches
over a decade, a September 2014 report by accounting and tax
consultancy firm BDO concluded.
The largest yearly profits the company ever recorded from its
overseas operations totalled just 36m euros, and that was back in 2005,
according to the firm’s 2011 annual report.

Outside of Austria, Alpine Bau left behind ramshackle construction
sites, unfinished or poorly executed roads, hundreds of job losses and a
long line of creditors.
Alpine Bau’s liquidators commissioned the BDO report to find out what had gone wrong.
It claims Alpine Bau operated outside of Austria without sufficient
controls and points to its rapid expansion in the Balkans – alongside
Germany and Poland – as key to its downfall. Of the 1.3 billion euro
lost investment in foreign projects, nearly half was funnelled to
Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia. This was a
disproportionally large amount considering the construction work in
these countries.
The Balkans was seen by outsiders as the jewel in the corporation’s
crown. Alpine Bau had pioneered large projects in the region since 2001
–becoming arguable the region’s biggest builder – but the millions
invested were being progressively flushed away.Spiralling highway costs in Serbia

Beska bridge
Photo by: Zoran Zestic, Ministry of Transport

In 2006, Alpine Bau in Serbia won a bid to build a bridge over the
Danube in Beska, 20 kilometres northwest of the Serbian capital,
Belgrade, for 34m euros. But insiders told BIRN the project was beset by
technical problems and the cost escalated to in excess of 100m euros.
Alpine Bau had to settle for a fee of 54m euros after arbitration and
protracted arguments with the Serbian government and state-owned road
firm Putevi Srbija, documents secured under Freedom of Information laws
confirm.
Putevi Srbija is now pursuing a claim against Alpine Bau for,
coincidentally, 54m euros for unfinished and poor work on the bridge and
other projects.
Alpine Bau was commissioned in 2010 to construct part of the
pan-European highway between the Serbian city of Nis and the Bulgarian
border but the scheme did not progress.
An internal report seen by DATUM and BIRN predicted losses of 45m euros in 2012 for this project alone.
And according to Serbian prosecution documents, part of the highway
was built with construction material unlawfully sourced from Zvonko
Veselinovic, a controversial protest leader and businessman from
troubled northern Kosovo.Millions ‘missing’ in Macedonia
Not only did large-scale construction contracts in Macedonia fail to
turn a profit, but millions of euros were spent on suspect loans and
contracts, according to a KPMG inspection report dated June 2012 and an
internal audit dated June 2013, obtained by reporters.
The documents reveal a network of firms, many owned by or closely
linked to employees, received “dubious loans” and contracts. The auditor
singles out Gjoko Dinev, the general manager of Alpine Bau GmbH Skopje
from 2009, for particular criticism.
Consultancy contracts worth more than 3m euros were awarded between
2010 and 2012 to a company owned by some of Alpine’s Macedonian
employees. This despite the fact the company did not have any employees
and did not produce any evidence the work was carried out, according to
the internal report.
More than 6m euros of suspect payments are outlined in the report,
amounting to almost one third of Alpine Bau GmbH Skopje branch’s entire
revenue for 2012.
“Behind every single contract and every payment was a [legitimate]
service, at least during my time as general manager,” insists Dinev.
When asked who authorised payments, Dinev named Croatian Ivica
Borosak, who was listed as the second general manager in Macedonia and
head of the Alpine branch in Croatia. Borosak failed to return our
calls and emails.
After Alpine went bust, Borosak and Dinev were employed by firms
owned byMrs Helena Aluta-Oltyan, the wife of Dietmar Aluta-Oltyan, a
former shareholder and managing director of Alpine Bau.
Mrs Aluta-Oltyan took an active role in Alpine’s Balkan activities –
even describing herself as the ‘Alpine representative for the Balkans’ –
although insiders have said her true position in the company was far
from clear. She has failed to respond to our request for an interview
or written response.[Link to the “Balkan Family”]Albania: Money transferred to tax havens
In Albania, 1.4m euros was transferred during 2012 to a mysterious
Cypriot company called Windforce Estate Limited, which had been owned by
another offshore firm registered in the Marshall Islands. Ownership was
later signed over to employees of a Cypriot law firm.
The transfers were questioned in a Deloitte report, which was still
employed as the auditor in Alpine Bau branch in Tirana in 2013, and
obtained by DATUM and BIRN.
The payments to Windforce throughout 2012 were for work including
“acting and advising, material assistance in any meetings, discussions
and briefings”, according to invoices obtained by reporters.
The bills were addressed to Tirana managers Manfred Deppe and Amadeo
Garcia, but auditors were unable to find any other documents related to
the payments, including a contract between Alpine Bau and Windforce
referenced on the invoices.
This consultancy work was in connection to two highways Alpine Bau
Tirana Branch and its Greek partner AEGEK were building, after Alpine
won the contract in 2008. The projects were paid for from EU and
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development funds.
But the roads, between the towns of Vlore, Tepelene and Levan,
spiralled in cost, forcing the government to return to donors for more
money. Even then, the projects were dogged by technical problems and
sparked violent protests by villagers whose land was being built on.
One section remains unfinished almost five years after its estimated completion date of 2010.
Deloitte complained the consultancy firm Windforce had provided no
proof the work was carried out and failed Alpine Bau in Albania’s audit
for the financial year 2012 as a result.
The auditors noted that the recipient of the payments and sole
shareholder of Windforce had died in a Greek hospital in April 2013 and
as a result was unable to provide further details of what services it
had provided.
It is not known who the true owner of Windforce Estate was as those
currently listed as secretary, director and shareholders are employees
of a legal office in Cyprus – a common and legal ploy employed in the
notorious tax haven to ensure anonymity.
A former senior member of Alpine Bau Tirana branch, who said she had
sight of every contract being signed, revealed: "I worked for years for
Alpine and I'm shocked by the amount of money we paid Windforce Estate
Limited as I had never seen any contract or relevant document related to
this company."
While cash was being funnelled out of the firm to tax havens, sub-contractors were left with multi-million pound debts.
Construction firm Alban Tirana is owed 2.5m euros after successfully
taking Alpine Bau Tirana Branch to court claiming the Austrian firm
unfairly dismissed it in favour of AEGEK. The firm has not received a
penny and fears it will never do so now.
Emails exchanged between the manager of Alpine Bau Tirana branch and
the Albanian liquidators during May 2014 and obtained by DATUM and BIRN
show Alpine in Albania was not able to file for bankruptcy months after
its subsidiaries went bust in 2013.
In the end, Alpine Albania didn’t have enough funds to pay the fees to file for bankruptcy.Fatal management failings
In the BDO report commissioned by Alpine Bau’s liquidators, the
authors claim the firm’s rapid expansion overseas was “sales-oriented
and not profit-oriented” and that this was driven “by long-time co-owner
and ‘strongman’ of Alpine Bau, Mr Aluta-Oltyan, and the Spanish
majority owner FCC”.
“The strategy of gaining market share and the consequent entry into
new markets had a devastating impact on the profitability of the Alpine
Group,” the report concludes.

Dietmar Aluta-Oltyan is considered the mastermind and visionary of Alpine Bau.
The 70-year-old joined the company in 1968 and worked his way up to become a shareholder and managing director.
Around the turn of the millennium, under his leadership, Alpine began
to expand abroad. But his co-shareholders Georg Pappas, the founder of
Alpine, and engineer Otto Mierl kept a tight rein on their more
adventurous colleagues.
The tide appeared to be turning against the ambitious Aluta-Oltyan
when he was convicted of corruption in Germany in February 2006, related
to a fee he paid to secure the construction contract for Bayern
Munich’s landmark Allianz Arena.
He was given a two-year suspended sentence and a 1.8m euro fine,
having already stepped down as managing director of Alpine Bau, the
construction arm of the group.
Aluta-Oltyan then took up the job as executive director of Alpine
Holding, the umbrella firm which managed Alpine Bau, its biggest
company, but was ordered not to meddle in the construction firm’s work
But at that time, Spanish construction firm FCC snapped up shares
from the more cautiously minded Pappas and Mierl in the last quarter of
2006, emerging as majority owners. This left the path clear for
Aluta-Oltyan to unleash a turbo-charged expansion into the Balkans and
beyond, despite the fact he no longer held an executive role, say
company insiders.
The BDO audit reinforces this view, describing Aluta-Oltyan as the
“strongman” of Alpine Bau, who was “active on the executive level
without any checks and balances worth mentioning”.
“The management level responsible for the implementation of proper
controls was dominated by Mr Aluta-Oltyan through to the beginning of
2012,” the report reads.
“This was the case despite the fact that he was not formally
functioning as general manager nor was he on the supervisory board of
Alpine Bau GmbH.
“This leadership style, tailored to one individual, and the
accompanying corporate culture contributed decisively to the identified
deficiencies in terms of structures, controls and transparency.”
A lawyer for Mr Aluta-Oltyan said in a statement that their client
was bound to commercial confidentiality and could not answer our
detailed questions about his “strongman” position and role leading
Alpine Bau into foreign markets.
The lawyer added: “In the name of our client I would like to point
out that numerous remarks and assumptions on which the questions are
based are in part evidently incorrect. The image that is conveyed of my
client is therefore incorrect as well.”
FCC, sole shareholders at the time of Alpine Bau's bankruptcy, did not respond to our requests for a comment.‘Balkan Chaos’ warnings
From 2008 there were increasing complaints in Salzburg about colleagues in the south, insiders have told BIRN and DATUM.
“It was chaos in the Balkans,” says one well placed ex-employee at Alpine Bau in Salzburg.
“For instance, we had 16 different payroll systems, nobody knew who worked where exactly and what their contracts looked like.”
Half a dozen ex-managers of Alpine Bau confirmed independently from
each other that Balkan subsidiaries enjoyed greater freedom and that
Aluta-Oltyan took a personal interest in the firm’s foreign business.
Senior managers in Salzburg knew about some of the problems with the
larger foreign projects as they were reported up the chain, but it’s not
clear who was aware of the scale of losses.
Representatives of the majority stakeholder FCC were repeatedly
informed of communication problems with the Balkan subsidiaries,
according to sources close to the events.
“We told the Spaniards that it cannot continue the way it is,” says one ex-manager.
According to BDO, Alpine Bau was already effectively insolvent by October 2010.
The fact that no one had noticed earlier remains one of the great
mysteries of the bankruptcy, although the auditors do criticise their
internationally renowned peers Deloitte, who did not spot the problem
when signing off the accounts in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
A spokeswoman for Deloitte Austria said she was confident that it had performed “diligent and proper audit work”.
“This [BDO] report is made on behalf of, and paid for by, the
liquidator of Alpine and therefore not an objective opinion of an
independent expert,” she added.
Banks had loaned Alpine Bau hundreds of millions of euros from 2010
onwards, 180m of which was guaranteed by the Austrian taxpayer. The
public had also snapped up 290m euros of bonds in 2011 and 2012 as the
firm attempted to inject fresh capital into the business.
Aluta-Oltyan left Alpine Bau in the spring of 2012, selling his 19.3
per cent holding to the majority stakeholder FCC for 52.6 million euros.Losses uncovered by new auditors
The new boss from March 2012, Johannes Dotter, a former chairman of
one of Alpine Bau’s Austrian competitors Porr AG, had ordered new audits
into Alpine’s operations and the closing of failing Alpine offices
abroad.
KPMG’s findings published internally in the summer of 2012 were
shocking: the firm was sitting on customer invoices worth 300 to 400m
euros which would never be paid, ripping a massive hole in the company
balance sheets.
These were charges that Alpine had hoped to recoup from customers
after costs for projects had risen above the initial contract price.
In October 2012, news of the KPMG report appeared in the press. This
was the kiss of death for Alpine Bau which eventually went bust in June
the following year.
But for Mrs Aluta-Oltyan, the wife of Alpine Bau’s former managing director, business in the Balkans continues to prosper.
In March this year she launched a new mining business, snapping up
quarries worth 12m euros, including one Serbian-based mining company,
Alpine Kamen – sold by the liquidators of its parent company Alpine Bau.

Don't miss tomorrow's extraordinary revelations of how a
close-knit group of Alpine Bau employees, dubbed "The Family", ran
operations for the Austrian giant in the Balkans.

This article was produced as part of a programme titled “A Paper
Trail to Better Governance”, with funding from the Austrian Development
Cooperation (ADC) and implemented by BIRN. The content does not reflect
views and opinions of ADC.